One of the world’s largest freshwater fish, an Asian catfish as big as a bear, may disappear in the near future, warns a UC Davis conservation biologist from his research base in Cambodia.
The giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas), which grows to 10 feet long and 650 pounds, is a migratory species in the rivers of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. It has been a mainstay for local fishers for centuries.
Now very few fish are being caught. At one typical traditional fishing spot on th
Global temperatures have increased dramatically over the past century, which is causing major impacts on climate patterns, ocean circulation and wildlife preservation. The increase in temperature is largely due to a rise of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, of which CO2 is one of the most important.
To understand the capacity of ecosystems to sequester excesses of atmospheric CO2 and improve our ability to predict future climate change scenarios, we must first improve our knowled
Even though many sea turtle populations are declining, quantifying factors that contribute to declines has been challenging. Mortality occurs on nesting beaches due to habitat loss, egg poaching, and predation. But turtles also die at sea due to accidental catches in fishing gear.
In the March issue of Ecology Letters, Duke University researchers quantify incidental catch of loggerheads (Caretta caretta) and leatherbacks (Dermochelys coricea) in the global pelagic longline fishery.
Chocolate bars and other supermarket products might sell better from green-coloured point-of-sale stands, Cathrine Jansson will tell delegates at a meeting of the SCI (Society of Chemical Industry) on 3 March. She will be previewing results of new research on the effect of colour on consumers’ behaviour which suggests that we spot green items faster than any other colour tested.
New research
Research into effective design and packaging usually focuses on brand awareness. Jan
They may be the future of e-government, but online transaction services have yet to realise their full potential. But the SMARTGOV platform helps public sector employees generate e-forms by simplifying integration with existing IT systems.
Combining intelligent management of electronic services and knowledge about public services, the platform, developed by IST-project SMARTGOV, leverages the potential of open-source technologies to provide a set of tools to facilitate and maintain online transa
Taking up the work of the SPARTACUS project, PROPOLIS aims to investigate and develop integrated policies for land use and transport with tools and methods of evaluation in order to define strategies for long-term urban sustainability from a triple perspective: environmental, social and economic. For each of these dimensions a series of indicators are drawn up which enables the measurement of the level of sustainability of the different policy options involving these perspectives.
To analy
A small pilot study funded by the National Institutes of Health suggests that women who undergo hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) may run the risk of diminished hearing. Depending on the measure, HRT recipients on average did anywhere from 10 to 30 percent worse on hearing tests than women who had not received HRT, says Robert D. Frisina, Ph.D., professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Frisina and colleagues from the International Center for Hearing and Spe
Just how much water does each of us really need? Not to swim in, or diet with. Not to respond to marketing claims, or counter salty foods or to cope with dry environments.
Many swear by the advice that for proper body hydration, 64 oz of water should be consumed each day. Other scientists and researchers disagree with that long held belief, recommending that one should only consume water “when thirsty.”
Why should we be concerned? For one, water shortages may be the next great cri
Regulation of gene expression–deciding how much of what proteins are produced in the cell–is controlled by a myriad of different molecules. One type of naturally occurring regulatory molecule is small interfering RNA (siRNA), which selectively disrupts the production of a protein it is programmed to recognize, a process called RNA interference. These short stretches of nucleotides combine with other cellular proteins to form an RNA-induced silencing complex, called RISC, which locates and destroys
Since small RNA molecules were discovered just over ten years ago, it has become clear that these once overlooked bits of genetic material play a decidedly large role in controlling gene expression and thus regulating a diverse array of cellular processes. They typically accomplish these tasks by targeting specific nucleotide sequences to shut down gene expression, and scientists are now starting to apply related strategies to inactivate specific genes for research and therapeutic purposes (see rela
One of the most damaging crop pests, the corn earworm, may be outwitting efforts to control it by making structural changes in a single metabolic protein, but new insights uncovered by molecular modeling could pave the way for more efficient insecticides, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In a study that compared the ability of corn earworms (Helicoverpa zea) and black swallowtail butterflies (Papilio polyxenes) to neutralize insecticides and plant defense a
The University of California, Santa Barbara announced today that it has donated all rights to a patent that covers the novel use of an established class of cardiovascular medicines as a potential new drug against a global parasitic disease. The Institute for OneWorld Health, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company based in San Francisco, will use the UCSB discovery and the wealth of data associated with the medicines to accelerate drug development for treatment of schistosomiasis.
Two UCSB resear
Hamilton College professor/students publish findings in JACS
Researchers at Hamilton College have identified several methods for successfully determining the structures and thermodynamic values for the formation of atmospheric water clusters, which scientists have speculated may accelerate global warming. The Hamilton team’s findings were published in the March 3 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The greenhouse effect is caused by molecules that abs
Partners to invest $3.1-mln in marine initiative that encompasses five protected areas & safeguards threatened species in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia & Ecuador
In one of the most ambitious marine conservation initiatives in the western hemisphere, four Latin American nations, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, the United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation), Conservation International (CI) and others are consolidating a marine protected area that stretches from Costa Rica to Ecuador and
Development of lymphoma in mice missing CBP gene occurs in cooperation with reduction of p27Kip1 protein level—despite the presence of the anti-cancer gene p53
Inactivation of the gene CBP in certain immature white blood cells of mice causes lymphoma, a type of cancer also found in humans. The cancer is accompanied by changes in the expression of specific genes associated with development of the disease. These findings, from researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital an
Treatment prevents later-stage tissue loss contributing to long-term injury
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Children’s Hospital Boston (CHB) have found that a commonly prescribed antibiotic could be used to help prevent paralysis and other long-term functional deficits associated with a partial spinal cord injury (SCI). Researchers in the field have known that a significant proportion of paralysis and long-term functional disorders associated with SCI a
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